How to fix constant disconnects when turning in quests in World of Warcraft
Are you constantly getting disconnected from the server when you turn in a quest in world of warcraft? I was having this problem also and it was driving me nuts for months. Months! I finally figured it out. I guess there are a number of potential solutions but they all seem to boil down to issues with the drivers for your ethernet controller. No other game has these issues (and I play a lot of different online games – UT2k4, Battlefield 2, a variety of Halflife 2 mods, to name just a few) so I blame blizzard, especially since the issue was introduced by them in a patch. Anyway, if you’re trying to fix it, first of all, use the Blizzard forums and search on things like ‘quest disconnect’ and ‘ethernet drivers.’ Since there are over 100 bajillion posts in there, it can be hard to find the solution. Helpful Blizzard even has a FAQ page for this issue, except it sucks and didn’t have the solution for me. If you can’t find something useful in their forums, and their FAQ page doesn’t solve it for you, and you have an nforce 4-based motherboard like me, try this (taken from a post in the blizzard forums by Tweedledree):
For network cards that support “Checksum Offloading”: Such as; Intel Pro 100 series, Marvell Yukon, Broadcom, 3com CNet, and Nvidia nForce, you may need to disable it to resolve this issue.
1. Goto “Start” > “Control Panel”. 2. Double click to open “Network Connections”. 3. Right click on your network adapter and go to properties. 4. Click on “Configure” and go to the “Advanced” tab. 5. Select “Checksum Offload” and choose disable in the window to the right. 6. Click on Ok
This worked for me and finally solved the constant disconnect problem I had been having.
Apparantly the one place us mac users get a boost in gaming. I’ve never seen the problem. I get a consistant 8-12fps and never get cut off.
I should have mentioned this was PC only. As to the lack o disconnects, good deal on that, I can’t tell you how many times I have been disconnected by the game. As to your fps…I feel sorry for you
thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!! thank you!!!
he he. You’re welcome. It was driving me nuts too
jesus christ.
you must be god, to figure something as simple as that would make all the difference. you have my thanks.
I wish I could take credit, but I didn’t figure it out on my own, I just managed to dig the answer out of Blizzard’s immense forums.
Anyway glad it helped
your a saint, a saint!
Sadly, no one has figured out a way to fix this for people who dont have that checksum offload option anywhere…
It’s funny, this post of mine gets a lot of traffic from google. I can’t believe that Blizzard still hasn’t fixed the issue, first of all, and second of all that their documentation on the issue is so crappy that users are finding their way to me for the solution. I generally love their company and the game but man, this is lame on their part.
It has been annoying me too for quite some time, so I figured, while being disconnected once again after turning in a quest and not being able to log back on, to solve it now once and for all. The keywords “disconnect turning in quests” in google gave me a link to this page as first suggestion.
Then I stayed online a little longer than I planned to turn in a few quests, and heureka its gone.
You may take credit for spreading the solution even if you didn’t find out yourself. *praise, commend* Thank you for this page!
I am facing the same problems with my WPN824 Router, but I have no possibility to disable the checksum offload. So here is another approach found in the WoW forums that helped:
These are in order in which I think are most important:
1) Goto settings (192.168.0.1) and goto advanced settings -> wireless settings
108Mbps Settings
Disable Advanced 108Mbps Features (check this box)
Enable eXtended Range(XR) Feature (uncheck this box)
2) Download Dr.TCP and set MTU for your network adapter to 1400. Next go into router settings again and set that MTU to 1400 (in WAN settings).
3) If your using a USB wireless adapter (I’m using a belkin one) I uninstalled the Belkin program and ran it directly through Windows Wireless connection… you do this buy going to remove programs, removing the belkin software, unplug adapter, restart, plug in adapter, when windows asks for the drivers point it to the CD that came w/ the adapter (however DO NOT INSTALL the utility from belkin)
4) Other things that could help are: Disable 108Mbit RangeMax Technology, have a look on router overheating and for those who don’t need much security: Disable the SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection) Firewall at your Router ( WAN Setup -> Disable SPI Firewall), so the malformed TCP Packages (that cause your router to crash) can get through.
Hope this helps
Hi,
Thanks for that. For whatever reason this page shows up highly and google and folks end up here looking for a solution to the problem. Thanks for adding to the possible solutions.
My brother just picked up a new computer w/ a nForce4 mobo and couldn’t figure out why he was constantly being disconnected.
This saved the day.
I really am happy to see that you all got your problems fixed with this simple solution… but it doesn’t work for everyone…
For those of you who don’t have an advanced tab (NForce & maybe others) UPDATE your drivers! I did this and now have checksum disabled… although this works for many, it’s not wanting to work for me.. Anyone think they know why?
Wow. I can’t believe folks are still having this issue with WoW, almost 2 years later, and that they’re still finding their way to proposed solutions here instead of to something Blizzard posts. For what it’s worth, I sent an email to Blizzard suggesting they do something about this, since this page continues to show up highly in google and folks keep finding their way here, but I got a useless responses from them.
Ugh. Blizzard, ISP provider, everything. We’ve tried it all to no avail. I can play maybe for ten minutes, then get booted, it’s been like this all day and there’s been no help. I’m running Vista on a laptop, there’s no ‘Checksum’ available. I’ve got a dual processor, I’m staying connect to the ‘internet’ just not to WoW. We’ve tried it all, like I said. My fiance sits next to me on a PC and plays as well, same server, same everything. Sometimes we DC at the same time, sometimes we don’t. Tried turning off virus/spyware protections, still nothing. I’m going insane and Blizzard’s not even trying to help. What do we do?
Ugh. Revert to windows XP maybe? Check your drivers for the lan card? You probably already did that. Wish I had some advice for you, all I can think to suggest is to keep posting on and digging through Blizzard’s forum, somewhere there will probably know the answer for your specific laptop model.
I have the issue that, when I do disconnect, it shuts down my entire internet connection (I use a wireless connection for the computer), and I cannot restart the connection without cycling my router (which only works sometimes), or restarting my computer. I will attempt the solutions on this page today, when I get home, but has anyone else been experiencing these problems?
Running: Vista on Dual Core, 4GB Ram, 512mb Radeon card, etc. No performance issues at all, and WoW is the only program that ever gives me connection problems.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Still get disconnected from the internet every time, and have to restart my computer in order to get it back. All of my firmware is updated, deleted WTF, Interface, and Cache folders, and tried every trick that Blizz and other people have offered, but to no avail.
Guess my WoW days are over.
Thank god for this. This has been happening for me for months. I even stopped playing…not because of the disconnects but because of many others things. I started playing not long ago and been having lots of connection problems. This fixed all of them. I have a nforce motherboard and this was very useful info. Thx again bud
Sure thing, you’re welcome.
Hmm i have windows vista what process do i do in that case?
Hi Holland,
Sorry, I have no idea. I haven’t switched to Vista yet. A few folks using it have posted in the comments here. The unfortunate thing is it doesn’t seem like there is one answer to this issue ;-(
I have been playing WoW on a new Dell E520 with Vista for the last year with no problem whatsoever, then, last week i started have a connection problem every ten minutes. It has been happening for over a week no, even got a new modem, did all the blizz stuff, i dont know what to do now.
Thanks you guy, you really help me.
Thanks you again
yeah its ok, im hoping they get a new patch that corrects these issues. this is rediculous…im stuck on halo 3 now till i hear some new news about these problems being resolved.
How do u get to the place to edit this on vista?
THank you sooo much for this! I have been just putting up with it for two or three days now, and finally got ticked off after not being able to party with some friends out of annoyance. I really appreciate your digging out of bungie for this one!
Ok, so its 2008 and this problem still persists, im trying to play a free trail to see if i like the game or not, i cant play the damn thing because it disconnects as soon as i get in the game, i walk around but everyone around is just running in place and turning in complete 360 degree circles, i have nooo idea what to do i want to try this game out please help!
lol, i noticed i didnt mention the name of the game anywhere in there, sorry lol its world of warcraft ^.^ my bad….
i have vista and its quite as easy as this, so do you know a way in witch i can resolve my problem and get back to playing warcraft
hi i have been having this problem for 8 weeks now, and i’m sure you’re aware that you have to pay monthly for the game so i’m very pissed off.
I’ve came here as a last resort as Blizzard tech support are unbelievabley crap.
The problem i’ve been having is that on 1 server, (Turalyon Server where my main characters are) I log in to the server and then i get disconnected after about 30 mins, well not disconnected… i seem to be hanging i the game cause i can run around and the game still detects where i moved but nothing in the game i can interact with works… people run on the spot and NPC’s stop and don’t do anything. Then if i’m lucky i get disconnected from server and taken back to the login screen. Or usually, it just stays in this lag for around 3-4 mins, and i’m impatient so i have to Alt+F4 out of the game and load again.
The things i’ve tried:
Fowarded all the neccisary ports on router
Reinstalled World of Warcraft 3 times
Used the repair tool
Disabled Firewall
Created Firewall rule to allow Blizzard
Tried logging in on another computer in the house (didn’t work)
My friend tried logging on on their account on my PC
Got a new Router
Connected to the router via ethernet cable
Connected to someone elses wireless connection (neighbour)
Added server IP’s and logon IP’s to the hosts file
Delete Interface, WDB and WTF folders in World of Warcraft Folder-
would be great if some 1 could find a solution for this problem
Hi A. Mitchell,
The one thing I don’t see in your list is trying to update the drivers for your ethernet card – also for your wireless card – did you try that? Also, when your friend logged into their account on your PC, were they also getting disconnected/having wierd issues? If so it seems likely that it is something to do with the network on your machine. Also, did you try adjusting the checksum settings as described above?
Best of luck in any case, sorry for your troubles.
Hello,
I’m hoping for at least something else to try from the community here as this issue is about to drive me insane. I never had the seemingly random disconnect issue until I installed Wrath of the Lich King last week. Now, I will be disconnected several times a night from both WoW and Ventrilo. It seems that the disconnects happen most when I talk for an extended period of time in Vent however they do happen at other times as well. Vent will lag and people will stop being able to hear me, the game will stall and then I get dc’d. I originally was using wireless so I switched to a direct line, I then switched to running connected directly to my cable modem which also did not resolve the issue. I tried all standard fixes, disabled checksum and forced full 100mb duplex on my network card, removed wtf and all addons etc to no avail. I finally called my ISP last night and they told me that it appears that my cable modem was bad, I was so happy that I ran right out and bought a new one. I got home, set it up and things really did appear to be fixed for about an hour at which time I was dc’d again, and then again about an hour later so on and so forth. I’m now at my wits end with this and have no idea what to do! I am running Vista 32 if that matters for anything. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated!!
Just as a quick update. I was told today that Blizzard is also suggesting that you disable a netowrk card setting called “Flow Control” which I am going to attmept tonight. I will post back with results from disabling this setting.
Hi JD,
Thanks for the update. Sorry, I wish I had a solution for you. It still amazes me how long this issue has been going on with WoW. In the almost 3 years since I originally posted this I have played a ton of other online games, including a number of MMORPGS (EQII, Tabula Rasa, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Age of Reckoning) and NONE of them have had this disconnect issue, yet Blizzard can’t seem to fix it on their game. Pretty lame if you ask me.
Anyway best of luck and thanks for posting,
Disabling flow control did seem to help for quite a while last night I was almost convinced that the issue had been resolved until we hit Naxx and I DC’d in the middle of a boss pull, and then again on trash about 30 minutes later I dc’d about 5-6 times total but it did seem like thing ran much more smoothly until the DC’s started. My last ditch effort to resolve this tonight will be to switch my cable modem to go through a USB connection instead of my NIC, hopefully this will bypass any issues that may be network card related.
Just to give a final reply to this it turns out that it really is a problem with my ISP. They finally (after at least 10 calls) were able to witness me being dropped from their end and admitted that it looks like a signal issue so, I have a Charter tech coming over this week to hopefully track down and fix the issue.
Thanks for following up. I wonder how many other folks were having this issue for a similar reason – kudos to you for managing to penetrate customer service defenses and actually get someone to pay attention to your issue.
I quit playing for a year because of this. I found this forum and did what it said and it worked. I love you man.
what does checksum offload do?
I have same issue, high latency, and keeps disconnecting, I cant get it fixed. I tried what you said here and it doesnt help.